Sunday, November 15, 2015

A Star is Born ~ Sermon (I Samuel and Mark)

At the beginning of this year, on Epiphany Sunday, I handed
out a star word to each of you.Do you
remember your stars? Mine is still posted on my office door, with its word
“Blessedness ” as a guidepost for my year.Did you post your star where you can see it? Do you know what your star
word is?

Back when we received our star words, we were full of hope
for the year ahead.We had completed a successful annual giving
campaign, and were making new plans for conversations with another
congregations.When I handed out the
stars, I said:

[Your
star[ contains a word for you, a word to ponder, to question, to pray with, to
laugh over, to wonder about.This
star might serve as your guide for the next year.What sort of year will it be for you, as a seeker?What sort of year for you as an individual,
as a family member, as a community
participant, as a worshipper with this congregation?What might your word suggest to you, during moments of joy, in the
middle of nights of heartache, on ordinary days and on extraordinary days? Stars have long been understood to be
mysterious guides – the constellations,
the specific stars like the North Star, our own sun – guides about which we
know little, but which
with their light and energy point the way for us, and even save us from some tight spots.

Our stars were born, out of construction paper and markers,
on a cold, but calm, wintery day.But in
celestial life, stars are born in a more complicated and dramatic way.I’m guessing that the physics and chemistry
involved in star formation is a bit beyond most of us, so I’m going to read
from a description for kids:

"The]
birth places of stars are huge, cold clouds of gas and dust, known as
'nebulas'.

These
clouds start to shrink under their own gravity. As the cloud gets smaller, it
breaks into clumps. Each clump
eventually becomes so hot and dense that nuclear reactions begin. When the temperature reaches 10 million
degrees Celsius, the clump becomes a new star."[1]

What I think this means is that stars are born out of the
imagination of God.Who else but the
Creator of the universe would come up with a plan to mix gasses and dust and
gravity and heat into nuclear reactions that would create all those twinkling
lights in the sky?

In God’s imagination, all sorts of births take place.Our first story today tells the story of the
birth of Samuel.

Samuel is one of those OT characters we aren’t entirely sure
about.Who was Samuel, exactly?

Samuel is most well known as an anointer of kings: first
Saul, and then David.In Samuel’s time,
3,000 years ago, the nation of Israel was ruled by judges – by people who served
mostly as tribal leaders. They weren’t necessarily judges as we think of judges
in our courts today, although they might sometimes preside over disputes and
issue decisions.But, more often, they
were thought of as military leaders who, when wars were over, returned to their
people to lead them in times of peace as well.

The people of Israel were not satisfied with their judges.They looked around and saw that their
neighbors had kings – hereditary rulers – and they wanted a king, too.Samuel, who was a judge himself, was upset
about this, but God told Samuel to go ahead and appoint a king, saying that the
people were not rejecting Samuel as their judge, but were rejecting God, their
real king.God also told Samuel to warn
the people, which he did, that their kings would exploit them, taking their
money for the royal treasury and their sons for battle -- but the people still wanted a king, and that’s
what they got.

Samuel, the last of the major judges and the anointer of
kings, is an important figure in the Bible, because he listened so carefully
to God and followed God’s instructions.And important people in the Bible – the stars of the Bible -- are often
the subjects of dramatic birth stories, stories in which difficulties are
overcome.

Samuel’s story is first the story of his mother Hannah, who,
unlike her husband Elkanah’s other wife, was unable to bear children.Elkanah was deeply in love with Hannah and
didn’t care about her childless state, but Hannah herself was devastated, and
prayed and wept to God for a son.She
promised God that if God would give her a son, she in turn would give her son
back to God, in service to God.And God
did, in response, give her a son, Samuel, and when Samuel was weaned, Hannah
took him to the temple to present him to God, and left him there to be raised
by Eli, the high priest.

This is a story of high drama – jealousy between wives,
intense wailing and weeping and prayer, a miraculous conception, and then – the
child given up by the mother who had so longed for him.This is a human version of the story of the
creation of a star.I wonder what
Samuel’s star word might have been, had Eli handed him a yellow
construction-paper star?

Obedient?Servant of
God?Leader?Messenger?Prophet?Annointer?

Do any of his words sound like words you might want for
yourself?Or do they sound as if they
would be too difficult to fulfill?

Of course, when God invites us to be born anew, as a new
star, with a new word, the role is often unexpected and not easy to
fulfill.

We have another star-birth story today, in the words of
Jesus from the Gospel of Mark.This one,
however, is first a star-death story.It’s an end-time story, told by Jesus just before his crucifixion, when
he proclaims to at least one disciple that the great stones of the temple, the
center of Jewish ceremonial life, will all be knocked down.And then he goes on to tell James and John
and Peter and Andrew, in confusing – and dramatic – terms, what will happen at
the end – or at the beginning, which may be the same thing: There will be false
prophets, he says, and wars and rumors of wars, and “nation will rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various
places; there will be famines. This,” says Jesus, “is but the beginning of the
birth pangs.”

Now, people sometimes like to look at these predictions of
war and famine and earthquakes and say, “The end of the world is near!” –
because all of these things are happening right now.But, honestly, can you think of any time in
human history in which all of these things were not happening?I don’t think that the point is merely to warn
of us of the end of the world as a catastrophic event of violence and disaster,
which will happen any minute now.I
think the point is to tell us that when the Reign of God finally breaks in to
our lives in all of its completeness, it will be so different from what we have
experienced that the contrast will astonish – and, I believe – delight us. What we are experiencing now is: the beginning
of the birth pangs.”

This passage reminds me of a trip our family made just about
31 years ago.My husband and I took our
twin sons, who were three months old, down to Florida to see my grandparents –
for what we knew was likely to be a final visit with my grandfather, who was
extremely ill.I was very close to my
grandparents – I had grown up next door to them, and since my brother and I had
lost our mother when we were small children, our grandparents had huge roles in
our lives.So I was accustomed to long
and intimate talks with them.Down in
Florida that year, with my grandfather confined to his bed, I spent a lot of
time introducing him and his great-grandsons to one another, and a lot of time
talking with my grandmother.One night,
I was telling her about when my sons were born, and she was telling me about
the challenges of caring for my grandfather.She sighed and said, “The passages at the beginning of life and at the
end of life are both very hard.”

I think that that’s what Jesus is getting at here.Beginnings and endings – both hard, and made
all the more so by the fact that they are simultaneous.

Look back at Samuel’s life, and his mother Hannah’s: what
was a joyful beginning for Hannah – the arrival of a longed-for child – was
also a heart-rending ending, as she had promised to return that child to
God.What was a hard ending for Samuel –
the separation from his parents – was also an exciting beginning – his new life
in the temple with the high priest, Eli.

Look at what Jesus says: the end of the temple of
coming.The end of life as you know it,
the end of your expectations and plans and rituals – all will be knocked down,
just as the huge stones of the temple will be.But these things are the birth pangs – the signs of new beginnings of a
new creation, of the in breaking of the reign of God when all shall be made
new, and there will be crying and tears no more.A new-star sort of life.

What about you and your star-word?Is a star about to be born?Are you about to be born again?Is your star a sign of something completely
unexpected?

I freely admit: When I taped my yellow star with the word ”Blessedness”
to my door, I did not expect Blessedness to look like the end of this year
does.

I expected Blessedness to look like a new church.New members and friends.Maybe a children’s Sunday School.That food pantry Doris dreamed of.Special events in Grandpa’s.

I did not expect Blessedness to look like closed doors.Like new members and friends in other congregations.Like giving away all of our leftover
food.Like giving away almost everything
in Grandpa’s.Like planning final
services for the last Sunday of this church year instead of Advent services for
the first Sundays of the new church year.

But. . . these are
the birth pangs.“In our end is our
beginning,” as the song says. Hannah had to promise to give up her child to get
her child.Samuel had to lose his family
to gain his role as judge and anointer of kings.The temple had to fall to make way for
something even now, 2000 years later, unknown.Jesus had to die to himself to give life to all.We have to reach an ending to rise
elsewhere.

These are the birth pangs.Not death pangs, but birth pangs.In Greek, the language of the gospel for the phrase ”birth pangs” means “travail” –
hard work, involving suffering.In
English, the word “to birth” comes from a Norse word meaning “to bear”: to
carry, to support, to move.Both are
true, aren’t they?This is hard work,
but it is the word of carrying and supporting and moving forward.

I intend to carry my star word, “Blessedness,” forward.I intend to support others in a blessed
future.

What about you?How
will you carry your word into the future, into the continuing realization of
the kingdom of God?

I pray that you will know blessedness as you
lift your star word up and carry it onward.Amen

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About Me

Married and mom of three.
Pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Spiritual Director in the Ignatian tradition.
Adjunct college instructor.
Writer, photographer, canoer, hiker, voracious reader ~ and someone who knows the beach is the best.
Email me at maryrcraigatsbcglobaldotnet.